I know I haven’t posted for awhile and then when I do I post about the Worcester State Hospital. Well,I stumbled across the mentioned site awhile back and the pictures just fascinated me. I think what has always stimulated my curiosity is the fact that we really don’t know much about how mental conditions work or how to treat them. It’s also a giant black box for what may have happened in these institutes. While the below pictures may haunt and disturb you, I’m not sure how far we’ve come in figuring out how to treat psychotics and other severe mental disorders. Most of these pictures are circa late 1800s to mid 1900s.
This is Worcester State Hospital.
The hospital was featured in LIFE Magazine in the mid-1900s, this image was one that was included in the article of a girl sitting in a sun-room. This picture of all the ones that I’m including, fascinates me the most. I can’t stop looking at it and thinking how fragile we all are.
I never knew about this till I stumbled across this picture. Under stress psychotics will not become dizzy if you shake them, and this apparatus is the read-out on how one is identified as being psychotic or not.
This room is at 112 degrees with 95% humidity where doctors are collecting these patients sweat in the below flasks for analysis. I have no idea what they are looking for but the image creeps me out.

This site also includes the Rochester State Hospital which was across the street from where I lived on South Ave. I used to walk around the abandoned grounds and it always gave me the willies. I never understood why they didn’t do something with it. The website Opacity has also featured it, however it doesn’t have as many pictures as the Worcester state hospital. One thing that was super creepy about Rochester State Hospital was that there was an abandoned village behind it of houses with street lights and picket fences, which I imagined was for doctors and nurses. I never understood how they could just let all those buildings just sit there. My mom told me that her Aunt used to joke with her when she was little that “if she didn’t behave she was going to be sent to South Ave.”